


Sand Through the Hourglass

by Kintatsujo



Category: Aladdin: The Animated Series
Genre: Gen, I just like how they interact, Multi, My First Work in This Fandom, Not counting when I was eight, it's not a mozenrath-and-aladdin-are-brothers fic, this isn't a mozenrath/aladdin fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kintatsujo/pseuds/Kintatsujo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew that it had been years, by the child's hand, that grew larger in his own with each passing day.  But it always felt like the day before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand Through the Hourglass

**Author's Note:**

> The only real explanation for why I wrote this is "Waagh, Disney's Aladdin, where are the tapes for that?"

He knew, intellectually, that it had been years that he had spent this way, even though the day that he'd arrived at Agrabah's gates, dying and demanding his gauntlet returned, always, _always_ felt like the day before. He knew because of the child's hand, which grew larger in his own with each passing day. But it always felt like the day before.

That day, he'd collapsed at his enemy's feet, finally too far gone to fight gravity, and the man (no longer a boy, though in his way he'd always _be_ a boy) took him into the palace, "to at least die comfortably."

It had been years. Sometimes the new Sultan would come in and talk to him. At first he hadn't been sure why- beyond the lack of love lost between them, he was fairly sure he seemed an idiot now, with hands that wouldn't move right and a mouth that no longer formed words. But he'd formed a new picture of his old enemy in the years that felt like a day, and finally understood the real difference between them.

"I couldn't actually _get_ work as a child, you know. People took one look at me and their thoughts went right to their valuables." A bright thief's grin lit up his face. "Which was silly, because then I stole their wares anyway and they didn't even get some labor out of me for it." He laughed for a moment, then turned quiet. "It's amazing I lived long enough to see the Cave of Wonders, really. And _more_ amazing that I still have both hands. I think that was what really horrified me, when I first saw what you'd done to yourself."

Aladdin may have been handed the world on a platter, but he had never wanted it. Someone to love him, someone to find him worthy, those had been his hungers, but the city asked him to be more than what he was as well as all that he was, constantly, every day. And he couldn't even trust his own captain of the guard or his servants with a helpless guest. Every so often, Aladdin himself would trim Mozenrath's hair, because he was afraid asking someone else would result in a slit throat. And at all times, the genie was the child's shadow, because everyone knew that, wedding or none, Razoul considered the child a bastard, and afforded him only a bastard's protection. Mozenrath honestly wondered what the man was still doing in royal employ. He had even heard Aladdin threaten, outside the doors to Mozenrath's death chambers, to replace the entire guard with the genie. But Aladdin still hadn't, because he still thought like the street rat that had to put up with such problems instead of like a sultan, who simply ended them.

He rarely saw the queen, which he found ironic and unsurprising. She had been the one to convince Aladdin to care for him, saying "Think of your father." Mozenrath occasionally idly wondered what Aladdin's father had to do with anything at all. But her avoidance of him said that she was only as human as the rest of them, and he was glad he didn't have to watch her pitying eyes.

The child loved him, much to the genie's dismay. When the child was learning to read, he insisted on practicing in Mozenrath's chambers, because "Uncle is probably lonesome." (Mozenrath had no idea why the child had decided to call him "Uncle," but he never called him anything else.) He continued to visit and read aloud even after losing the excuse of practice, and as he got older he started confessing things. "I think something is wrong with me," he whispered once. "I don't really want to get married."

He knew, intellectually, that it had been years since Aladdin had seen him as a proper enemy, but it was still very strange to feel the other's fingers in his hair as he combed it and trimmed it shorter. It was still very strange to see the look in his eyes as he supervised meals and other care. Even with a full black beard, he was still the boy that Mozenrath had fought, even with his son and the three daughters that the child hoped would marry and have sons right away so that he wouldn't have to.

Mozenrath's hair was already white. His hands wouldn't obey and his body was weak. He supposed it was a blessing that he could still chew and swallow with some dignity. And yet, the day he had been put here always felt like the day before.

That might have been why it surprised him when the child, now a tall and handsome prince, bought a wizard's services to restore his hand-- both his hands, so that he could grip and write and _study_ with them again. "I'll assume you hate me as much as my father, for all the years I've nattered at you," the child said, "But at least now you can tell me so."

Aladdin had been upset with the boy, of course, but had thrown up his hands at a look from his wife- "Think of your father," she said, and he allowed it.

But Mozenrath couldn't bring himself to be bitter with the child. He had trusted his dear "uncle" with his darkest secrets, and then turned around and given him the means to share them if he so chose. No one had ever actually trusted him before, even if the child's was somewhat misplaced. Even Destane's "trust" had only been given out of underestimation. The child trusted him with things and _then_ gave him the means to break that trust, and he gave freely.

It might have been more accurate to say that no one had loved him so honestly before.

"I think I'm in love with the gardener's son," the child whispered, and burst into tears. "Oh, oh Allah, Uncle, what's wrong with me?"

Mozenrath stared at the boy. He'd propped himself against his pillows, and had been idly reading before the confession had been made. This... if the child was discovered, there was a small chance he _wouldn't_ be executed or banished. Aladdin was stupidly sentimental. Mozenrath's time here was proof. But something like this couldn't be overlooked. Still, when he pulled the slate from his bedside table, what he wrote was " _There's nothing wrong with you._ " The child curved over his bed, sobbing, looking so like a slender version of his father, black hair hiding his eyes. Mozenrath reached out.

Intellectually, he knew it had been years. It still felt like the day before. But feeling the boy's hair between his fingers as he comforted him wasn't strange at all.

Mozenrath decided that something had to be done about this. The ways of love were beyond the touch of magic, as the genie noted. This problem had united them in a way Mozenrath hadn't expected; apparently genies generally saw too much to care whether one love was wrong or another right.

He bade the child keep silent on the matter, even though the genie disliked the idea. But the child was one of the only treasures in Mozenrath's life that he hadn't had to work for, that he'd been _given_ , even if he'd not asked for him. The child _was_ his Agrabah. It had been years, and it was finally starting to feel like them. He wasn't going to let something in the child's nature be the end of him.

The fool genie was convinced this didn't matter, that Aladdin would forgive the boy anything _because that was who Aladdin was._ Mozenrath knew that failing the expectations of a parent could be the worst sin, however, and the child agreed. At _best_ , the other youth would be the only one to suffer.

It had been a long time since Aladdin had actually _talked_ to him in a meaningful way. Mozenrath suspected that everything he'd said in those first few... days? Months, years? Those things had been said out of a need to say them before Mozenrath died on him. And then, of course, Mozenrath had not died.

The Sultan still trimmed his hair and beard, though, a peculiar routine that he apparently couldn't seem to drop. Even when he'd regained the use of his hands, Mozenrath had continued to allow it, because honestly, there was something _about_ having a sultan perform such a service.

"My son is hiding something from me," Aladdin murmured one evening, carefully combing the white hair back. Mozenrath turned to look at him, but his onetime rival gently forced him to look back forward. "I'm sure you know what, though I don't plan to ask." He trimmed carefully with a small knife, intent. Aladdin kept Mozenrath's hair shorter than Mozenrath himself had always preferred, although it was obviously because it was easier to care for when one was bedridden. "The more terrible the secret, the harder it is to reveal it," he said. "And the worse of a poison it is. I wish...." and he said nothing more.

Something seized at Mozenrath's chest as Aladdin stood to leave, and he reached out to grasp at his arm. Aladdin turned, stared at him. Mozenrath worked to form words, but his mouth worked uselessly, as it had for years, and even if he had been able to speak properly he'd promptly forgotten whatever he thought he'd say.

Aladdin sat back down on the bed. "When Jasmine and I were finally married," he said, "I discovered that my father was still alive. More importantly... he was the King of Thieves." Mozenrath rose one still dark eyebrow, to express his unsurprise, and Aladdin smiled. "Well, his band had _attacked_ the wedding right before I found this out," he said, "and I'd believed he was their prisoner. When I learned the truth, I hid it from Jasmine and invited him to the wedding anyway. Things didn't turn out well."

Well, in a way this explained why the queen always admonished her husband "Remember your father."

"He's still alive," Aladdin continued. "Iago went with him, visits sometimes to let us know they're still around." He looked away, and Mozenrath knew why-- Abu had died some long time before of old age. Mozenrath sort of understood. He wasn't even sure what had happened to Xerxes. "I can't ask him to change. Last I heard, he's built himself a new thieves' guild and made off with some lord's favorite sailing ship." He grinned. "Mind you, he's got to be in his sixties. I don't know how the man's still in such good shape, it's not like he's living a comfortable lifestyle."

Aladdin met his eyes again, holding the gaze for a long moment. "Ever since then Jasmine has been reminding me that some things take a lot of second chances. And that some things can't be changed-- but that that's okay." He patted Mozenrath's shoulder awkwardly. "I appreciate you being there for him. Even when it means keeping his secrets."

In the end, the child _did_ tell his parents. It was the closest thing to thanks that Mozenrath could offer his once rival. And the gardener's son was fine, and the child never married, but was perfectly happy anyway, even if the merchants' wives whispered behind their hankerchiefs.

As for the once Lord of the Black Sands, the days before finally slipped away, and the days ahead were bright.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know exactly how this story turned into what it has become, but I think I like it anyway.
> 
> There are a lot of things left deliberately unclear here. What, exactly, is wrong with "Uncle Mo." Most anything about the flow of time. Whether or not the gardener's son is ever even actually aware the Prince of Agrabah is in love with him. (Although you can assume that even if the gardener's son never reciprocated, Al's kid did eventually find a permanent partner, or at least a solution that made him happy.) Asking me will not get any answers, nor will asking me to "continue" get anything at all. Maybe someday I'll write something completely different that expands on similar ideas, but I had kind of mostly been hoping to get this story out of my system. It's complete.
> 
> This is also where I'm putting the disclaimer: My prose is mine, but otherwise I don't even remotely own these characters, and although the idea of Aladdin's son being gay occured to me as a sudden inspiration while first kicking this story around, it would be rather stupid of me to roar about "Aladdin's Gay Son Who is Friends With Mozenrath" as being my original character, especially seeing as how I didn't actually name him. Go ahead and use the idea, although it would be nice if at least an attempt was made to name the poor kid something vaguely Arabic. ;D


End file.
